Friday, September 18, 2015

Towards a Muscular Japan

In July of 2013 I wrote

Shinzō Abe's landslide victory provided him with the mandate
he truly craves. No, it isn't about implementing Abenomics and its three arrows
for economics has never been Abe's passion, it is about restoring Japan to its
glory as a muscular and militarized nation.

Following boisterous confrontations in the Diet and more
than three days of public protest, the Upper House finally enacted two divisive
security laws early Saturday that will mark a significant departure from
Japan’s postwar pacifism.

Enacting the contentious laws was one of Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s long-held ambitions. His goal was to find a way to remove some of
the key legal restrictions that the war-renouncing Constitution imposes on the
Self-Defense Forces during overseas missions in order to strengthen Japan’s
all-important military alliance with the United States.

Given the ruling coalition’s strength in both chambers of
the Diet, the opposition camp was essentially powerless to stop him. It was
thus reduced to obstructing the voting procedures and tapping public
frustration with the legislation in hopes of rallying widespread resistance.

Abe’s team submitted the two bills to the Diet in May. Since
then, more than 200 hours have been spent deliberating the legislation.

The Upper House’s final plenary session was called late
Friday night as the opposition camp, led by the Democratic Party of Japan,
delayed Diet procedures in protest by submitting no-confidence and censure
motions against Abe’s Cabinet ministers in both chambers.

According to opinion polls, a majority of the public opposes
the legislation and many think the government’s efforts to explain it fell
short.

A poll by the daily Asahi Shimbun from Sept. 12 to 13 found
that 54 percent of the 1,994 respondents oppose the bills and 29 percent
support them.

One of them amends 10 existing security-related laws to lift
various SDF restrictions, including Article 9’s long-standing ban on collective
self-defense.

The other creates a new permanent law that allows Japan to
deploy the SDF overseas to provide logistic support for United
Nations-authorized military operations involving a foreign or multinational
force.

Lifting the ban on collective self-defense, or the right to
defend an ally under armed attack even if Japan itself is not, was long
considered banned by war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. So instead
of formally amending the Constitution, which was considered politically
unfeasible, Abe simply had the government’s long-standing interpretation of
Article 9 altered to allow collective defense.